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Sep 22, 2010

Kemper rated it:

The summary on the jacket for this book says, “Think Blade Runner in the tropics.” That’s wrong. It’s not Blade Runner, it’s more like if you took Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Baroque Cycle trilogy and Anathem, the basic plot from Apocalypse Now and some concepts from a crappy Jet Li movie called The One and put them in a blender and mixed them up to come with a unique story, you’d start to have an idea of what this book is like.

There are three parallel stories told in different t More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2010

tim rated it:

Edit. Everything is edit, cutting down those endless tapes of footage to meaning… Take a sample here, another there, put them together, smooth over the joins with a little cutaway. A new reality.

A simple enough recipe for achieving life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Throw into the mixture a handful of spices: quantum computers, quantum knives, quantum tattoos. Sprinkle in some Gaian Goddesses and robotic surveillance angels; add a dash of Cosmic Christ. But don’t let anyone More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers know that I ended up lucking into a cool situation this month; I just happened to be able to get my hands on half of the ten books nominated this year for either the Philip K Dick Award (recognizing the best experimental science-fiction novel of the year) or the Hugo Award More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jason rated it:

Extremely difficult intro, largely due to the language barrier (and my own stupidity). The author uses large numbers of Brazilian words that would take whole phrases to describe in English since they don't have direct translations, so I ended up figuring out most of them purely through context. The reason I'm stupid is because there was a brief dictionary in the back of the book that I failed to notice until I finished it.

Besides that, you definitely still need to give this book some More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Birdlashes rated it:

I first heard about “Brasyl” when EW gave it a great review. I don’t usually pick my books from the EW reviews, but occasionally I learn about something that really piques my interest. Of course, being an unknown commodity (to me) and also currently available only in an expensive hard cover, I didn’t impulse buy Brasyl, but rather checked it out from my local library when I was in the mood to try it out—and that happened to be over this Holiday break. Congratulations, Ian McDonald, “Brasyl” i More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2010

Joyce rated it:

Three very different people--Marcelina, a reality TV producer living in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, who is also an accomplished capoeirista; Edson, a self-made talent impresario who still has deep roots in the favelas and crime of the S�o Paulo of 2032; Father Louis Quinn, S.J., who, in 1732, has been tasked by his order to track down and bring to heel an errant Jesuit in a remote area of the Amazon River Basin--suddenly find themselves a part of inexplicable events, of interest to people who simply More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Keith rated it:

The shoutline on the cover proclaims, ‘F**king brilliant. I’m as jealous as all hell – it’s a beauty’, the quote attributed to SF Master Richard Morgan. And Brasyl is certainly a beauty to look at, wrapped in an iridescent stencil-cut cover with a colourful kaleidoscope of images beneath. But the flashes and explosions don’t end there. From line one we are thrown mercilessly into a heady, crazy country and drenched in its own rich cultural references, lifestyles, mores and indifferences. It’s ha More...

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Feb 12, 2011

Klytia rated it:

2006 Rio de Janeiro: Marcelina è un ambiziosa produttrice di bizzarri reality show in cerca del portiere Barbosa, causa della sconfitta del Brasile nella finale del campionati mondiali del 1950. Troverà invece un'altra se stessa.
2036 Sau Paulo: Edson, giovane imprenditore e giocattolo sessuale di un vecchio professore di fisica, si innamora di una hacker "quantistica". La perderà e la ritroverà
1736 Amazzonia. Quinn, gesuita irlandese, viene inviato in missione nelle profondità della fo More...

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Jul 30, 2010

Ryun rated it:

Only a year after Pyr published the epic RIVER OF GODS in the U.S. comes Ian McDonald’s latest novel, BRASYL, and though it’s smaller than its predecessor, it packs no less punch and even more genius. Where other writers spend their whole lives creating fantastic imaginary worlds that have their own languages, calendars and social strata, McDonald has dived headfirst into a culture that’s every bit as fantastic and also awesomely real.

The extensive cultural literacy and knowledge Mc More...

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Jul 24, 2009

Tama rated it:

Unlike Ruzkin, I read a copy of Brasyl that had a stylish blue cover, rather than a curiously weird puke green mess. Not sure which represents the novel better …

So, what we have is a novel in three streams; one follows a TV presenter in present day Brazil. Another follows a Jesuit priest in the past. The third follows a guy in future Brazil, in a setting far more cyberpunk.

Well, I wasn’t as enamored by this novel as Ruzkin. I found it a tough read, and not just because th More...

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Jan 21, 2008

Sandi rated it:

Ian McDonald is one of my favorite authors. He probably has more imagination than any other author out there. He creates futures that are totally bizarre and makes them completely believable. In my opinion, "Brasyl" is one of his best novels. It's been nominated for the Hugo award and deserves to win.

"Brasyl" explores the concept of multiple universes in a whole new way. The end was a total surprise. I will definitely be re-reading this book.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Ben rated it:

Somewhat disappointing. Ian McDonald certainly has a distinctive style. It worked for me in River of Gods...but in Brasyl I was mostly annoyed. Maybe reading this right after River of Gods was not a good thing to do since they are so similar in style and both heavily involve quantum mechanics. I was a little sick of the parallel universe/multiverse stuff. However, it did end strong so I would recommend it...but it did not live up to the hype.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Jamie rated it:

A sci-fi book told from three different characters' perspectives, one in modern day Brazil, one thirty years in the future, and one from the 1700's. The back cover hook told me they were all connected somehow. This was enough to get me interested, combined with the fact that I lived in Brazil for two years. Good thing I did.

I don't know how this book would be comprehensible to someone who hasn't lived in Brazil. No, not comprehensible, it's just that the author throws so much brazili More...

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Oct 07, 2009

Logan rated it:

As constant (some may say obsessive) readers, we have all come to know our individual tastes rather well. We know what books will hit our literary G spots and which will leave us feeling cold and dirty, like the regretful afterglow of a one night stand. We learn to savor those reads that are a “sure thing,” that guaranty a night of debauched pleasure. This is how it was when I first heard of the publishing of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl. There is no doubt that I am a scifi junkie. Few books scrat More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

Ian rated it:

This book leant heavily on Brazilian culture and vocabulary in an attempt to make it more interesting. The science was not at all convincing to me: the description of being able to see into parallel worlds was not at all believable, and it made no sense that the poison from a frog conferred the ability to do so in humans, just because that frog's retina is supposedly capable of detecting a single quantum of light (and is thus able to see into the quantum world). Also, just because you can see More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 13, 2010

Hobbes rated it:

3 histoires entrelacées au Brésil, 1733, 2006 et 2033. Un jésuite envoyé au fin fond de la jungle amazonienne pour ramener un prêtre sur le droit chemin (apocalypse now ?!), une productrice de télé-réalité aujourd'hui et un petit "entrepreneur" issu des favelas dans un futur proche où tous les mouvements sont surveillés par des puces RFID et des satellites de la police. Trois histoires apparemment sans point commun qui finissent par se rejoindre au travers de la mécanique quantique (eh More...

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Mar 09, 2009

Adam rated it:

Brazyl is a three part narrative drawn together through locale and quantum physics. The title is a good clue as none of them are actually Brazil and vary in interesting ways. They are a contemporary media satire worth of anyone of the post-Delillo generation that becomes a tale of a sinister doppelganger, a near future Gibson style cyber punk, and my favorite an alternative history of colonial Brazil that evokes Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Pynchon’s Mason Dixon, and Llosa’s War at the End of t More...

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Apr 10, 2008

Kris rated it:

This was on lots of best-of scifi lists last year, but I thought it started slow and never really recovered. Also, I have tried it in many forms, but I just can't really get into cyberpunk (Neal Stephenson excepted).

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Doctor Nurenberg rated it:

Blade-runner meets Mad-Men meets Sliders, with a dash of World Cup fever and a detour into Heart of Darkness...Cyberpunk with a healthy dose of quantum physics and favela flair. One has to give McDonald credit for genre-mashing as well as temporal cross-cutting: three engaging characters, each of whose Brazil (1700s, 2000s, and 2050s) is well-crafted and convincing. Despite an unfortunate and increasing descent into silliness towards the end when the "metaplot" gets flushed out (at w More...

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Aug 28, 2010

Rob rated it:

All in all I got the impression Brasyl is very carefully written and well researched. It displays the poetic quality of McDonald’s writing very well. Like Cyberabad Days it is a challenging read, one I didn’t truly appreciate until what I had just read, had time to sink in. I think McDonald managed to earn himself a place on the list of my favourite authors with these two books. The settings he chooses, the quality of the writing and the way seems to be able to completely immerse himself in the More...

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Sep 07, 2011

Guilherme rated it:

Ficção cientifica a puxar para o cyberpunk com o Brasil presente, passado e futuro numa onda de mecânica quântica e universos paralelos.

O facto de ter 3 narrativas, cada uma com uma personagem principal diferente e passada num período temporal também diferente torna o livro algo partido/fracturado.

Apesar de existirem alguns pontos de contacto entres as várias narrativas, não chega para formar um todo realmente consistente.

Calculo que tenha alguns temas e conceitos e More...

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Aug 14, 2009

Rob rated it:

Fully enjoyed this book, deliciously colourful and trashy. Initially I certainly preferred the Heart of Darkness homage set in the 18th century, but as things progressed I enjoyed the other storylines more and that one a little less.

McDonald's got a great style for this kind of book, although where he let the punctuation give way it did make me feel a bit nauseous. Thoroughly modern stuff, internal monologues chopped and sprayed through paragraphs. At any rate, his language remained More...

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May 13, 2009

Tim rated it:

Writers, like other artists, do not create in a vacuum. Rather, creation often comes by accretion, building on ideas of others to strike out in new or different directions. Ian McDonald's Brasyl is a marvelous example of such synthesis.[return][return]Each chapter contains three storylines set in past, present and future Brazils. Not only does McDonald give us a flavor for life in each period, he links them in unexpected and striking ways. Here, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness meets The Matrix More...

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Oct 21, 2011

Dev rated it:

A triptych of Brasil: one story an 18th century priestly heart of darkness, another a present day career bent tv producer, and the last a street hustler finding his way through the favelas of 2030. The dartings of this tricorned story annoy at times and the action is sometimes disjointed. The physics behind the time hopping gratify, but they're gone over redundantly throughout the stories. McDonald is a talented writer but perhaps he should've spent more time writing a more fluent story and l More...

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Aug 08, 2011

Graham rated it:

I liked this more than his Indian cyberpunk, but he has some really bad writing habits- esp twisted grammar, verb-less sentences, and silly silly silly repetitions that are supposed to sound hip. I first thought this was Indian dialect -but his characters speak like this in Basil and Turkey - so its just condescending fake developing-world slang.
The 18th Century plot was a straight rip off of ""The Mission"" with a couple of plot twists. Just as well it was plagiarized, More...

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Jun 30, 2009

David rated it:

A delightful and engaging "multiverse" story. It is written as three parallel narratives of three distinct characters from different historical periods in Brazil. As it progresses, details in each sub-plot suggest the links between them. By the end, the author has skillfully woven together these threads into a satisfying whole. The characters are well-developed and believable. I must leave it to those more knowledgeable about the real Brazil to decide how convincing the cultural milieu More...

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Apr 15, 2011

Alexandra rated it:

I fell madly in love with Ian McDonald with Dervish House, so I pounced when I found Brasyl at the bookshop the other day. Given his other novel is Cyberabad Days, he's an author who is clearly very keen to explore non-traditional settings for SF written in English - in a way that, as far as I can tell, is as true to those non-Anglo locales as he can be.

(NB: isn't the cover a riot? There's a mask, and a lizard, and tail feathers, and stars, and circuitry, and a butterfly...)

A More...

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Feb 20, 2011

Rob rated it:

(8/10) Alright, let's start with the immediately obvious: Ian McDonald can freakin' write. His prose is note-perfect for the story he's telling, lively and sparkling without ever being purple or overly academic.

Beyond that, Brasyl is pretty good on its other merits too. The book is split into three separate stories, taking place in Brazil's past, present and future, which are eventually revealed to be all part of a larger struggle between hidden forces. Of the three I felt the past More...

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Dec 30, 2010

Dav rated it:

This is a wild, ambitious novel that focuses on two of my favorite things: Brasil and Quantum Physics. I would like to give it 4 stars because I enjoyed much of it immensely, but it had a rambling overly wrought tendency that never cohered into a satisfying story. I think he was just trying too hard. Toward the end it really just went off the rails for me.

I read a lot of it while lying in bed feverish and, when too tired to hold up a book, mixed in with periods of listening to the audi More...

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Nov 04, 2010

Jason rated it:

My cousin recommended Ian McDonald's writings to me (thank you Matt!) and I'm glad that he did. McDonald is a genius at the helm, crafting science fiction that reads almost like poetry. His writing style is quite complex, using pretty sophisticated language oftentimes with limited punctuation, but transports the reader quite quickly and efficiently to the other worlds in McDonald's imagination.

This story injects a fairly compelling interpolation of quantum physics and the multi-realiti More...

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